As one who spent more than 25 years in magazine publishing as an editor and publisher, I’d just say cut them a little slack. In the US we’ve become addicted to thinking that magazines should be almost free. 12 issues of S&T for $57 is incredibly inexpensive. It barely covers the cost to mail the magazine to your home address to say nothing of the cost of paper and ink.
And that doesn’t even include the cost of paying contributors to produce content, editors and art directors to do everything from planning a quality editorial package to making sure that content is factually correct and presented in a manner that makes sense and is in keeping with the magazine’s goals and principals.
Publications rely on advertisers to foot most of those bills while readers, who get the content for almost nothing, habitually complain about the number of ads in the magazine. And the publications are trying to do that in an environment where those kinds of traditional ad dollars are drying up in favor of an uncountable number of other ways that marketing departments are spreading their finite budgets.
And in the face of these challenges, there are dedicated professionals who have made it their life’s work to work for a readership that is as passionate about the subject as they themselves are. Their staffs are being squeezed. Their support staffs are being cut to the bone and outsourced and automated to save every possible dollar that needs to be spent on content, paper, printing and postage.
And yes times are difficult everywhere and publishing doesn’t deserve a special a special pass, but then again the professionals who do this don’t ask for a special pass. They do it because they can. And because they are called to it.
So maybe give them a bit of a break when things don’t go smoothly.
